Florida lawmakers defy DeSantis in rift over state budget

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Florida lawmakers defy DeSantis in rift over state budget

2025-03-27 05:59 Last Updated At：06:01

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) — Once floated as the heir to Donald Trump’s GOP, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is used to getting his way in Tallahassee. He has wielded power like no other governor in the state’s recent history and enjoys a Republican supermajority in both chambers.

But as the governor approaches the end of his second term, that same supermajority is testing his power and checking his control over state spending and executive agencies, in a way DeSantis hasn't seen since he was elected in 2018.

For six years, DeSantis has kept lawmakers in line with his veto pen, bringing the statehouse’s then-leaders on stage in 2022 to stand behind him as he slashed $3 billion in the Legislature’s prized projects and smiled for the cameras.

“They may not be clapping about that,” DeSantis joked at the time, “but that’s just the way it goes.”

But when DeSantis returned to the Capitol for this year's session, he found an emboldened coequal branch of government willing to check and balance his power.

In recent weeks, Republicans and Democrats alike have grilled DeSantis administration officials on their spending, pushed legislation that would require agency heads live in the county where their department is headquartered, and advanced a proposal that would ban the use of state funds to advocate for or against a proposed constitutional amendment. That measure comes after DeSantis marshaled multiple state agencies to oppose two measures on the ballot in 2024 that would have legalized recreational marijuana and expanded abortion access.

Addressing his colleagues on the House floor Wednesday, Speaker Daniel Perez said “state government has a spending problem.”

“In the past, this House has justifiably called out local governments for misspending and mismanagement,” Perez said. “But we have been reluctant to turn our gaze on ourselves and hold state government to those same standards.”

Then, in another rebuke of DeSantis, the Florida House voted Wednesday to override the governor's vetoes of four items from last year's budget, totaling more than $5 million to help fund local water projects, a payroll system for state prisons and a program for veterans in crisis.

The veto overrides, which require a supermajority vote in both chambers, underscore lawmakers' willingness to push back against the popular Republican governor — and fiercely defend their own constitutional duty to craft the state's budget.

“This session, we have focused on restoring the institutional role of the Florida House of Representatives,” Perez said.

It is the second time that lawmakers have voted to override DeSantis' budget vetoes. The first came in January, when DeSantis called legislators back to the Capitol for a special session on immigration. In a bold act of defiance, lawmakers quickly tossed out the governor's proposals and laid out their own vision — and then voted to override his veto of $57 million for legislative support services, the first time in 15 years the Legislature had taken the move.

Republican state Rep. Michelle Salzman, who chaired one of the work groups overseeing the review of the governor's vetoes, called the process a “great opportunity."

“Many legislatures throughout America do this on a regular basis. So while it's something that we haven't done in a very, very, very long time, it's not something unique,” Salzman said. “It is the checks and balances of the government.”

Also on Wednesday, Perez announced a proposal for the state to permanently lower its sales tax from 6% to 5.25%, at a time when DeSantis has been pushing to roll back the state's property taxes.

Speaking to reporters, Perez voiced support for cutting property taxes. But he raised questions about how the governor's proposal could impact local services like fire departments and police forces.

“If the governor were to give us a proposal, we can have that conversation,” Perez said.

Democrats, who have long criticized the governor but are far outnumbered in the state Capitol, have cheered their Republican colleagues' willingness to exercise their independent authority in overriding the governor's vetoes.

“It’s great to see that the Legislature is flexing its coequal branch of government muscle,” Democratic state Rep. Kelly Skidmore told reporters.

The votes send a message to the governor, she said, “that you’re not in charge as much as you thought you were.”

Gaza's bakeries could shut down within a week under Israel's blockade of all food and supplies

2025-03-30 16:47 Last Updated At：16:51

DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — Gaza’s bakeries will run out of flour for bread within a week, the U.N. says. Agencies have cut food distributions to families in half. Markets are empty of most vegetables. Many aid workers cannot move around because of Israeli bombardment.

For four weeks, Israel has shut off all sources of food, fuel, medicine and other supplies for the Gaza Strip’s population of more than 2 million Palestinians. It’s the longest blockade yet of Israel’s 17-month-old campaign against Hamas, with no sign of it ending. Many are going hungry during the normally festive Eid al-Fitr, a major Muslim holiday.

Aid workers are stretching out the supplies they have but warn of a catastrophic surge in severe hunger and malnutrition. Eventually, food will run out completely if the flow of aid is not restored, because the war has destroyed almost all local food production in Gaza.

“We depend entirely on this aid box,” said Shorouq Shamlakh, a mother of three collecting her family’s monthly box of food from a U.N. distribution center in Jabaliya in northern Gaza. She and her children reduce their meals to make it last a month, she said. “If this closes, who else will provide us with food?”

The World Food Program said Thursday that its flour for bakeries is only enough to keep producing bread for 800,000 people a day until Tuesday and that its overall food supplies will last a maximum of two weeks. As a “last resort” once all other food is exhausted, it has emergency stocks of fortified nutritional biscuits for 415,000 people.

Fuel and medicine will last weeks longer before hitting zero. Hospitals are rationing antibiotics and painkillers. Aid groups are shifting limited fuel supplies between multiple needs, all indispensable — trucks to move aid, bakeries to make bread, wells and desalination plants to produce water, hospitals to keep machines running.

“We have to make impossible choices. Everything is needed,” said Clémence Lagouardat, the Gaza response leader for Oxfam International, speaking from Deir al-Balah in central Gaza at a briefing Wednesday. “It’s extremely hard to prioritize.”

Compounding the problems, Israel resumed its military campaign on March 18 with bombardment that has killed hundreds of Palestinians, mostly women and children, according to health officials. It has hit humanitarian facilities, the U.N. says. New evacuation orders have forced more than 140,000 Palestinians to move yet again.

But Israel has not resumed the system for aid groups to notify the military of their movements to ensure they were not hit by bombardment, multiple aid workers said. As a result, various groups have stopped water deliveries, nutrition for malnourished children and other programs because it's not safe for teams to move.

COGAT, the Israeli military body in charge of coordinating aid, said the system was halted during the ceasefire. Now it is implemented in some areas “in accordance with policy and operational assessments ... based on the situation on the ground,” COGAT said, without elaborating.

During the 42 days of ceasefire that began in mid-January, aid groups rushed in significant amounts of aid. Food also streamed into commercial markets.

But nothing has entered Gaza since Israel cut off that flow on March 2. Israel says the siege and renewed military campaign aim to force Hamas to accept changes in their agreed-on ceasefire deal and release more hostages.

Fresh produce is now rare in Gaza’s markets. Meat, chicken, potatoes, yogurt, eggs and fruits are completely gone, Palestinians say.

Prices for everything else have skyrocketed out of reach for many Palestinians. A kilo (2 pounds) of onions can cost the equivalent of $14, a kilo of tomatoes goes for $6, if they can be found. Cooking gas prices have spiraled as much as 30-fold, so families are back to scrounging for wood to make fires.

“It’s totally insane,” said Abeer al-Aker, a teacher and mother of three in Gaza City. “No food, no services. … I believe that the famine has started again. ”

At the distribution center in Jabaliya, Rema Megat sorted through the food ration box for her family of 10: rice, lentils, a few cans of sardines, a half kilo of sugar, two packets of powdered milk.

“It’s not enough to last a month,” she said. “This kilo of rice will be used up in one go.”

The U.N. has cut its distribution of food rations in half to redirect more supplies to bakeries and free kitchens producing prepared meals, said Olga Cherevko, spokesperson for the U.N. humanitarian agency, known as OCHA.

The number of prepared meals has grown 25% to 940,000 meals a day, she said, and bakeries are churning out more bread. But that burns through supplies faster.

Once flour runs out soon, “there will be no bread production happening in a large part of Gaza,” said Gavin Kelleher, with the Norwegian Refugee Council.

UNRWA, the main U.N. agency for Palestinians, only has a few thousand food parcels left and enough flour for a few days, said Sam Rose, the agency's acting director in Gaza.

Gaza Soup Kitchen, one of the main public kitchens, can’t get any meat or much produce, so they serve rice with canned vegetables, co-founder Hani Almadhoun said.

“There are a lot more people showing up, and they’re more desperate. So people are fighting for food,” he said.

The United States pressured Israel to let aid into Gaza at the beginning of the war in October 2023, after Israel imposed a blockade of about two weeks. This time, it has supported Israel’s policy.

Rights groups have called it a “starvation policy” that could be a war crime.

Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar told a news conference Monday that “Israel is acting in accordance with international law.”

He accused Hamas of stealing aid and said Israel is not required to let in supplies if it will be diverted to combatants.

He gave no indication of whether the siege could be lifted but said Gaza had enough supplies, pointing to the aid that flowed in during the ceasefire.

Because its teams can’t coordinate movements with the military, Save the Children suspended programs providing nutrition to malnourished children, said Rachael Cummings, the group’s humanitarian response leader in Gaza.

“We are expecting an increase in the rate of malnutrition,” she said. “Not only children — adolescent girls, pregnant women.”

During the ceasefire, Save the Children was able to bring some 4,000 malnourished infants and children back to normal weight, said Alexandra Saif, the group’s head of humanitarian policy.

About 300 malnourished patients a day were coming into its clinic in Deir al-Balah, she said. The numbers have plunged — to zero on some days — because patients are too afraid of bombardment, she said.

The multiple crises are intertwined. Malnutrition leaves kids vulnerable to pneumonia, diarrhea and other diseases. Lack of clean water and crowded conditions only spread more illnesses. Hospitals overwhelmed with the wounded can’t use their limited supplies on other patients.

Aid workers say not only Palestinians, but their own staff have begun to fall into despair.

“The world has lost its compass,” UNRWA’s Rose said. “There’s just a feeling here that anything could happen, and it still wouldn’t be enough for the world to say, this is enough.”

Magdy and Keath reported from Cairo, El Deeb from Beirut. AP correspondents Fatma Khaled in Cairo and Julia Frankel and Sam Mednick in Jerusalem contributed.